Patients
by duckie lover 151
Summary: It seems that someone is always causing problems for the endowed children, but this is the first time that the problem has been so big it may force the 'dark' side and the 'light' side to work together.


**PROLOGUE**

It is not unusual for Saturday to be a child's favorite day of the week. It is even less likely for this to be so of the children of Bloor's Academy. The endowed especially. Every child had to deal with the strictness of the rules, but usually it was only the endowed who had to deal with avoiding Manfred's hypnotizing glare at every corner.

It was one of those rare times that all was (somewhat) peaceful. Though Charlie and Olivia had still gotten detention, nothing major had come up.

Though none of the children had been given any clues that this wasn't to be for long.

Lysander was spending his Saturday morning at Tancred's house. This too was not unusual. It was safe to say that it was a fairly normal (and somewhat boring) Saturday.

Tancred was decidedly more subdued than usual because Lysander couldn't remember the last time the Thunder House had been this calm.

They were spread out on the floor up in Tancred's room, doodling on paper. Their conversation was brief and meaningless. But neither boy seemed to mind.

Then a not so meaningless topic came up.

Tancred's eyes drifted away from the tree he'd been drawing and up to his bookshelf. Until recently this had resided in his closet. It was safer there. But, having nothing to do, (and having been in a particularly safe mood for quite some time) Tancred had moved it back out.

Now his eyes skimmed over the titles, not really reading them. Tancred wasn't much of a reader, but he'd glanced through most of them from time to time so as not to insult his mother who was his main supplier in literature. However, he wasn't really thinking of books. He frowned and one of the books flew off the shelf and landed between him and his friend.

Lysander looked up. "What is it?" He was genuinely curious. Tancred had his share of deep thinking moments, but he wasn't one of keep things to himself.

"Sander..." Tancred started not quite sure how to continue.

The African boy waited patiently.

"Do you do any reading?"

Lysander grinned. "More than you do."

Tancred smiled too. "No doubt. Well, you know how whenever a character in a book finds out they have some strange power or whatever their first instinct is to hide it from the rest of the world? Why do you think that's any different from being endowed?"

Lysander thought for a moment. Then, "But... it is different. In those stories everyone else is..." Lysander frowned. He didn't want to say 'normal'. He hated it himself whenever anyone referred to one of the unendowed as 'normal.' And since Tancred's talent was more noticeable than most he knew his friend had a harder time of it than he did. "In those books," he restarted "nobody else is like the main character. Can you remember a time when you weren't endowed? Or when you didn't know of anybody who was?"

Tancred shook his head. "No. It's been in the family for as long as anyone can remember."

"Exactly. Same thing with me. No one ever had to ask. It was just common knowledge that my mom was like me and you and your dad. And Bloors has been around nearly forever too."

Tancred nodded, accepting this answer. But there was still something bothering him. He couldn't explain it.

Lysander picked up the book that had fallen to recover his drawing. When Tancred looked at it he was surprised to say the least. It looked exactly like his only Sander had begun to color his in.

The two boys had drawn identical pictures of a gold and red tree. Though neither had mentioned it the picture brought a certain calmness and joy to both of them.

Lysander didn't notice Tancred's drawing; he'd gone back to contemplating his own. Their art supplies couldn't even begin to bring out the tree's beauty, but the drawing was still a nice one, nonetheless.

As much peace as the image brought him, Tancred couldn't help but feel that this meant something. A grim foreboding overtook him.

He groaned and dropped his head to rest on his arms.

"Sorry," he mumbled as his friend was showered by the rest of his books on the shelves.

**...**

Bloor's Academy never seemed to be peaceful, no matter how quiet it was. Today the big doors were being opened once more, though not to let him out early as Charlie would have wished.

He watched from the balcony as Weedon welcomed someone in to the big hall. The young man was thin and had dark hair. He may have fit in well with the Bloors if he didn't have a strange aura about him that indicated that he clearly did not belong to such a renowned family.

There were surprisingly no restrictions or rules on where he was supposed to be at this point, but still Charlie went to the trouble of making sure he wasn't in plain view up on the balcony.

Nevertheless the young man looked up in his direction in a way that made Charlie shiver though he couldn't explain why.

It was this look that convinced him he should leave before Olivia caused a scene by coming to look for him.

**...**

Aaron Weedon walked into the dining hall of Bloor's Academy. He was no more impressed with this building than he was of the streets of London where he'd gone for schooling. (Though this school was considerably larger than the place he'd attended college.)

The young Weedon had gone to school and gotten his degree in doctoring. Though no one had said a thing to him his teachers were always a bit put off the sight of him entering their class. Though he was nothing but pleasant with the administrators and professors they suspected he had a much darker side to him that none of them would have enjoyed witnessing.

Now, after graduating Aaron had decided to pay a visit to the mysterious school where his father was employed. Though really he was here less to see his father than to learn of other matters.

In a very short time he had gotten his father to tell him all about "those wretched endowed children" who attended this school.

_Interesting, _he thought _Very interesting._

There was a wicked glint in his eye as he left that day.

**Review please! In case I forgot to mention this, this story is set between book 4 and book 5.**

**In case anyone who is reading this is interested I do have 3 other Charlie Bone stories, but be warned: they suck... bad.**

**I'm considering rewriting them. Actually this is the first Children of the Red King series story that I've written since I first joined the site...**

**Let me know how I did!**


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